A marketing solution for a product launch with a small business based in Liverpool

Published on Thu Dec 12, 2019 by David J Colbran

Ongoing work with Wellbeing Therapies by Fiona - being simple, being creative.

Absolutely great for an existing client to get in touch with an exciting new project. Fiona contacted me a couple of months ago and explained she was launching a range of boutique beauty face creams and could I help. As we had built her website and I had taken some marketing photos on a couple of occasions she gave me a call and a coffee date was arranged.

She needed product labels, marketing materials - flyers, banners and various on-line social media collateral. Alongside product photography and an ecommerce solution to sell them via her website.

An across-the-board set of requirements that needed careful planning. So I talked through a few ideas, showed some previous design work and provided a quote broken down into manageable chunks for each element of the project.

The first consideration were brand requirements. Occasionally a product can be a stand-alone entity. But here the creams are building upon an established brand. So the packaging needed to represent the business aesthetic; following colours, fonts and logos already used across Wellbeing Therapies by Fiona's website and other marketing material. Of course we had these at hand, having designed her logo and the correct colours and fonts. So we were ready to go.

The next stage was to look at the text content that needed to go on the packaging. Of course this is pretty unique to a specific product, so we agreed and confirmed this in a follow up meeting before any design work began.

Dealing with beauty products for the skin, there were certain requirements on the packaging for legal reasons. Each of the 5 products in the range, needed their unique ingredients listed and certain marks added (for example vegan free, paraben free) on the labels.

Obviously had to have the logo, the product name and then a strapline, enticing someone to purchase. Finally we considered additional information to be put on different batches of products (for example; made on and expiration dates). So we ensured we saved some space for a sticker to be placed on at a later date with those details.

The designs went through a few versions and finalised with top and rear labels as shown below.

 

While the labels were at the printers, we moved on to produce some marketing materials. First up were a series of flyers for each of the range of products. Again these followed the brand style guidelines and included the label design and listed the ingredients, as well as highlighting the essential oils used. These were for various sales events, as well as to be included in packaging sent out to customers. Then we replicated the labels and got everything the correct size for a pop-up banner to take on promotional trips.

(photograph kindly supplied and used with permission from Fiona at one of her promotional events)

Once the labels were printed and we had some physical products set up, it was time to visit Fiona again and undertake some product photography.

The final element of this project was to add an ecommerce element to their website, to sell the face creams online.

We evaluated a few solutions and decided upon the ECwid platform. It is great for those on a budget and with basic selling requirements - we are only talking 5 products here, so quite straight forward. The basic version worked well, plugged into the existing pages nicely and had the functionality we needed. Of course, additional versions allows a shop to add many more options and be scalable if we need to ramp things up.

I like the way ECWid differs from Shopify in that it is not really a 'standalone' hosted solution but more a widget that gets placed on bespoke pages. The system produces a few lines of code to add to your existing website and your store is displayed wherever you've inserted it. In theory you could host your store on multiple locations. Again to keep things simple we used Paypal as our payment gateway - most people are familiar with the brand. At the same time we added a SSL certificate to the Wellbeing Therapies by Fiona website.

"I never realised the amount of work required launching a retail project. From health and safety requirements through to eventual point of sale. Almost overwhelming ! I contacted a few agencies, including David at DJC Design for ideas and costings. He had an advantage knowing about my business already, having built my website and taken photos. But a major difference and selling point was on price - others quoted thousands, whereas David was in the hundreds. He clearly broke down elements to see exactly what I was getting for my money, this was essential for my business and any business on a budget. Sure, it took a little while to get the labels right but he was patient with my revisions. And it is brilliant to get a simple working way to sell my face creams online - I've had really positive feedback from my clients and customers. Overall recommended."

Of course if you would like to see the page in question click this link Boutique face creams at prices that will amaze you

Hopefully this post demonstrates that DJC Design can help a small business produce an affordable and creative marketing solution to a business problem. Let me persuade you further over a coffee - call me on 07810 321634 to arrange a meeting - I'm paying.

Author: David J Colbran